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UPS Begins Smart-Access Delivery in New York City
Your packages are here, and you’re not. It’s all right — they’ll just let themselves in.
UPS Inc. has begun a pilot program with the smart-access provider Latch to give UPS drivers keyless entry to building lobbies and package rooms in parts of New York City.
UPS ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America.
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The program, starting in Manhattan and Brooklyn, will help drivers complete more deliveries on the first attempt. For every building to which they are making a delivery, they get a unique credential on a handheld device, the Atlanta-based package delivery company said July 17.
Latch monitors each entry digitally to create a record of the user and time of access. Drivers won’t be given access to individual apartments.
“It can be difficult to securely deliver packages in high-density, multifamily urban residences, especially when people are not at home,” Jerome Roberts, UPS’ vice president of global product innovation, said in a statement. He called smart access “a big step forward for the package delivery business.”
Latch, founded by veterans of Apple Inc. and based in New York, has raised more than $26 million in private funding, according to the statement.
